


Changing Outlooks

by Leonawriter



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Galra Keith (Voltron), Gen, Team as Family, Timeline What Timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-12
Updated: 2017-01-12
Packaged: 2018-09-16 22:48:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9292922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leonawriter/pseuds/Leonawriter
Summary: When working in a team, there shouldn't be such a thing as 'just about adequate interaction', but in Pidge's eyes, Keith is just about pushing it after a few days or so now of being purple, and it's gone far enough.





	

Pidge finds him in the training room, where he always went to blow off steam, work something out. It'd been a few days already, but she couldn't blame him. She knew  _she'd_ be needing to hit things for a while still if she were the one having to deal with, well...  _this_.

Watching is hard. It makes her heart speed up and settle in her mouth, and there are flashes where she doesn't see her friend and teammate sparring with the gladiator module, but the countless fights she's been in with Galra soldiers over the weeks - months - up close and personal, and from a distance, hurting her, hurting her  _friends_. 

Maybe it might've been easier if he'd been in his armour. That was how they'd first seen him like this, after all - the Red Paladin, but a Galra, and speaking with Keith's voice, and the Red Lion letting him in when they all realised that whatever else was going on, they needed to get out, and they needed to form Voltron. 

Forming Voltron had been a weird experience with Keith the way he was, but in the heat of the battle, they hadn't been able to think about anything other than making sure they stayed alive, and the way that Keith's presence in the team bond had been low-key freaking out all the time had made it easier to see him as  _Keith_ when they separated and came back to the Castle.

His holing himself away had lasted long enough, though. Lance was getting irritated, Hunk was getting concerned, and Shiro was getting - well, Pidge could only guess he felt like Keith only involving himself as much as he had to and no more was somehow  _his_ fault. Which was ridiculous, really - it wasn't anyone's fault. But that didn't mean that there was any good in it continuing.

Even if, she had to admit, seeing him like this was really, really unnerving still.

The simulation ended, and Pidge made sure she was relaxed before she went in -  _it's only Keith, after all_  - noting the familiarity of the way he wiped the sweat off his forehead, and the way he sat down with the bottle of alien drink. Even though he was purple and his eyes were yellow, some things didn't change - just like how there were always parts of an equation that stayed the same no matter how many variables you added in.

"You know," she said, startling him so that he almost stood up, reaching for his bayard again before realising that it was her and not some random stranger on the ship full to the brim of all of seven people, "doing things on your own is all well and good, but it won't help anyone if you just get self-absorbed into your own problems and you start pushing people away."

He stared at her, and with those yellow eyes of his it was hard to say exactly what he meant by it, but she'd also be hard pressed to say it wasn't still  _creepy_. 

Then, it wasn't as though he'd given them a chance to get acclimatised to it yet.

"Is that all you came here to say? Because if it is, it's not very original."

He turned away, breaking eye contact. Probably deliberately, too, she thought, as he took another swig of drink.

"Well, yes and no. I said that because I know from experience, not because I'm preaching or anything. Remember?" She - just as deliberately - walked further in, leaning against the wall only a few feet away. "You're not the first one to go through this."

It was as close to  _you're not alone_ as she thought she could get. 

At first, she didn't think she was even getting a reply, because Keith was just staring at his carton and not saying anything. Then-

"Oh. Uh, thanks. I think."

She turned to him with a smile, one that faded somewhat with the memories that had started to come to her.

"It's lonely, isn't it? I mean, everyone thinks they know you, but they don't. Not really. And - it gets to a point where you aren't even sure if  _you_ know you. Because you have to lie. And then, when the secret's finally out? It almost feels like something's missing, because you're so used to it being there." She sighed. "I kept tripping over my own pronouns back then and I  _wanted_ to be a girl again."

Keith's laugh, when it comes, is unexpected but completely welcome, even if it does sound a bit bitter. Though if she's honest, she's more used to it coming from something Lance or Hunk have said, not  _her._

"I keep waking up and looking at my hands, or looking in the mirror, and forgetting I'm not actually  _human_ ," he says quietly. "At least people looked at you and still saw someone who didn't remind them of-" he broke off, but it was easy enough to figure out where he was going.

 _We've all been hurt by the Galra. Everyone's got a reason to want to take down Zarkon._ _So, what's it gotta be like to see one of_ them _when you look at yourself?_

"I think," she said slowly, "that might be the root of the problem." She pushed her glasses up. "I can't deny it's strange to watch you. But that's partly because we don't have much of any other frame of reference for the Galra. And... you don't have nearly enough frame of reference for us dealing with them in a way that isn't what we're used to, either. It's no wonder we're all confused. At the moment, we're all so worried about what might go wrong here that we're missing the opportunity to become something greater than what we ever were before."

Keith blinked, and crossed his arms. She recognised it easily from the number of times he'd had arguments with Lance and he just wasn't taken by a point yet. 

"Which would be... what, exactly? Because so far, I've just been seeing a bunch of people who've suddenly realised they got someone on board they didn't sign up for. There isn't anything  _great_ about that, Pidge."

"See, that's  _exactly_ what I was talking about! You aren't giving us a chance! That's the thing about family, Keith. People change, and yeah, maybe yours has freaked us out, but even if we can't just  _roll with it_ we grow from the experience! The fact that you're here  _at all_ says a lot about how Zarkon doesn't have as much of an iron grip on his Galran Empire as he thinks he does, and if nothing else - that gives us all something to hold on to! Because even if you're just one person, you're on our team. We'd never question that. And if you're here, then... then others might be working against Zarkon too," she said, finishing on a much quieter note than she'd started.

Keith's eyes were staring at her again, but this time when he looked away, it felt less as though he was trying to avoid her.

"I guess I'd never thought of it that way," he said, matching her quiet tone. "Everything's just been one fight after another, and with Zarkon at the middle of it all, I wouldn't have held it against  _any_ of you if you'd turned me out."

She shrugged, feeling vaguely uneasy at the way he'd just _said_ that without thinking anything of it.

"Well, we didn't. And now, we can see things in this amazing new way. I don't know about you, but I think that's really amazing. Terrifying sometimes, but amazing."

Keith gave some kind of huff of laughter, and she grinned.

"So... do you wanna come and actually interact with the others this time, or d'you need to beat up a few more training droids first?"

It wasn't hard to notice the way his hand - fingers now clawed, she realised, not for the first or last time - tensed around the now empty carton for a moment, before he sighed.

"I suppose. But just so you know, I'm trusting you on this."

"Oh, come  _on_ ," she said with a roll of her eyes, opening the training room door. "When have I ever lead you wrong?"

"Dail-"

"And that doesn't count. That  _never_ counted. That wasn't my fault, remember? Not my fault."


End file.
